By BEN R. WILLIAMS
In the movie “Ghostbusters,” there are two main antagonists: Gozer, a dimension-traveling being of unfathomable evil bent on the destruction of the world, and Walter Peck, a mid-level inspector for the Environmental Protection Agency.
When I was a kid, I hated Peck WAY more.
You remember Walter Peck: he shows up at the firehouse where the Ghostbusters operate and makes them shut down the containment unit in the basement, causing a wave of ghosts and psychic energy to explode through the ceiling and cover the city. The Ghostbusters are just trying to help people and Walter Peck ruins everything! Plus, he’s a jerk to Bill Murray! How can you not hate him?
Sometime in my 20s, my buddy Bradley and I were watching Ghostbusters for the 400th time, and I suddenly experienced a creeping sense of horror.
“Oh no,” I thought. “Walter Peck was RIGHT.”
Yes, Peck is a jerk, and he’s arrogant, and he makes a massive error in judgment. But aside from that — and it pains me to say this — his actions are justified.
In real life, if you heard that four guys built a contraption that doubles as a huge bomb in the center of America’s most populous city and were running around carrying unlicensed nuclear accelerators and they were stopped by some random dude from the EPA, you would consider that man a hero.
In fact — and man, it REALLY pains me to say this — Ghostbusters is basically a conservative/Libertarian fantasy. The central idea of the movie is that all the silly red tape and oversight from government agencies like the EPA is strangling entrepreneurs, and when the dumb bureaucrats fail, the only thing that can save the world is private industry.
This is how we know Ghostbusters is a work of fiction: in the real world, rejecting government oversight in favor of unfettered private industry usually results in paramilitary organizations that murder civilians rather than triumphs over giant marshmallow men.
It can also result in disastrous consequences at the grocery store, which is the scenario we’re all currently experiencing.
In an opinion piece for Food Safety News (FSN) dated Sept. 26, 2025 — just under a year ago — Phyllis Entis wrote that President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were in the midst of a plan to dismantle the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
They fired every member of the FDA’s media communications team. They shifted the responsibility for food safety inspections from the federal government to the states. They also slashed staffing, most pertinently to the FDA’s Field Laboratory Operations, which were cut by more than half.
The FDA was already struggling before the Trump administration made these cuts, Entis wrote, and she predicted that the new changes would make things dramatically worse.
“What can U.S. consumers expect as a result of these roll-backs?” she wrote last September. “More foodborne disease, including more hospitalizations and deaths. More outbreaks going unreported and unsolved. Inconsistent food safety inspection standards from state to state.”
Well, Phyllis Entis, I’m sorry to report that you hit the bullseye.
Now that RFK Jr. has dismantled and desecrated the FDA just like one of his beloved roadkill raccoons, it seems like a new food item is being recalled every other day. Aside from the famous Taylor Farms lettuce that gives you diarrhea so bad you’ll pray for death, here’s a partial (repeat, partial) list of food items that have been recalled this summer, arranged in no particular order:
Frozen blueberries, eggs, jalapeno peppers and jalapeno-related dips and salsas, soup kits, salad dressings, granola, infant formula, multiple kinds of cheese, mixed berries, pita chips, chocolate bars, chia seeds, salmon, yellowfin tuna, peeled garlic, cream cheese spreads, tofu spreads, cottage cheese, powdered beverage mixes, potato chips, pork rinds, coleslaw products, and finally, in utterly terrible news for any expatriates from the Netherlands, dried herring, kippered herring, AND whole smoked herring.
The contaminants found in these products range from botulism to E. coli to salmonella to listeria. If you’re a healthy adult, ingesting any one of these contaminants will result in a very unpleasant experience. If you’re a child or an adult in poor health, it could prove fatal. In fact, two people in Michigan died earlier this month from cyclosporiasis caused by contaminated food items. Thousands more have been made violently ill.
When you see the reams of rules and regulations that factory farms have to follow, it’s easy to wonder why they’re all necessary. It’s especially easy if you’re a crackpot like RFK Jr. If he hadn’t been born a Kennedy, RFK Jr. would have long ago been arrested for running a failed wellness retreat for people who believe that taking mercury enemas will open their third eye.
But much like OSHA guidelines, these rules are written in blood and exist for good reason. They exist to protect all of us, especially the most vulnerable among us. Mothers should be able to go to the grocery store confident in the knowledge that a tub of baby formula on the shelf isn’t going to sicken or, God forbid, kill their child. We’re ostensibly supposed to be a first world country here.
At times like these, I’m reminded of a great quote from the late P.J. O’Rourke, a man who, much like the movie “Ghostbusters,” was very funny while also being of a conservative/Libertarian bent:
“The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”
AMEN. This time they’re proving it beyond anything we ever imagined—in our country at least.
All we can hope is that we can flip both the U.S. HOUSE & the US SENATE in November—maybe that’ll start the resurrection of our Democracy or whatever one wants to call what we used to be. Whatever that was it was most assuredly far better than the destruction that is happening now!